🌑 Your muse just had a nightmare and needs cuddles to fall asleep again. (Jayley & Y'asmina)
Some nights, the burning returned. Her mind was a creative creature, twisting glowing and branded skin beyond its markings, turning it to fiery chains that seared through her flesh. Even in the midst of her dreams she could smell the scent of charred flesh and iron.
Other nights, it was a different kind of burning. Her limbs felt heavy, cold and bloated - no longer her own. A unique sort of suffering twisted in her gut, squeezing her chest and forcing the breath from her lungs. Her throat restricted, strangled by a twist of scales. And yet her fight was long over. She was merely present to witness her own defeat, deep beneath the surface dappled with light.
Tonight, swirled in a frigid and suffocating darkness, she chased candles. One after another, she would reach that flickering safety only to find the flame out of reach, snuffed out by her presence. Over and over she tried, desperate to keep just one candle alive as the number of lights dwindled. And yet every time, it was the same exchange. Her painted hands would reach, and the light would fade. Where did they go? Why couldn’t she just keep one?
Just as that last lick of flame disappeared and her body was enveloped in the chilling ichor, her eyes shot open and her body jolted up to sit in the midst of her tangled bedding. The constant drum in her chest felt off kilter, deciding to play a melody instead of a beat. Teeth chattered until the witch forced her jaw closed, raking her hand back through her sweat-dampened, tousled hair.
It was a dream…go away…go back to sleep.
For a bell, she laid there, contesting her fear in favor of returning to slumber. And yet, the darkness of her quarters taunted her, warning her that the moment she drifted off, she would be back in the midst of that horror once more.
Frustrated, Y’asmina reached under her bed, finding a dark shirt that was far too big for her frame. Over her head it went and the witch tried again, curled on her side with the bottom half of her face tucked beneath the collar of her safety garment.
Rolling to her opposite side, her tired stare fell on her door. And in that same glance, her golden eyes honed in on the lock. Her mind drifted for only a moment before recalling something in her possession.
It took another bell of bouncing back and forth between what she should do, what she wanted to do and what was the adult thing to do before the witch told all of her foolish thoughts to fuck themselves. Throwing off her sheets and grabbing only her linkpearl bracelet and that singular key she needed, Y’asmina reached out to allow the aetherstream to take her where she needed to go.
First, it was merely a walk through the wilds, her bare feet chilled by the damp moss underfoot.
From there, it was only a door, once defiant but now? Compliant with the turn of a key. She made sure to return it to its valiant state behind her.
Finally, it was just a few carefully taken steps to find where the Keeper was sleeping in the darkness. The witch even made sure to make her footfalls audible. Azeyma help her if she actually caught the woman by surprise.
Her ears could hear that continuous rumbling that shook the vicinity whenever Jayley breathed. In the darkness, Mina’s widen pupils could just make out where the outline of her body lay. Of course the Keeper would fall asleep on a couch on the one night Y’asmina took advantage of her secret weapon.
Well, she’d come too far to turn around now. She’d just have to make it work.
At the very least, the witch made her best effort to not poke or prod any bony bits against other bony bits as she crawled on the couch, considering trying to sleep on the slim outer edge of the couch that wasn’t occupied. Deciding that she was being dumb about this whole ordeal, she merely settled down atop the Keeper, taking solace in the heat and the soothing gravelly groan she heard beneath her. The witch breathed deeply, rubbing her face into the curve of Jay’s neck and shoulder as the trepidation in her chest finally settled.
“Bad dream,” she whispered, “I’ll tell you later. Go back to sleep.”
